"Into the rhubarb: headed off the road; to get into trouble; a brawl, argument, or squabble."
In her fifth volume of poetry, Carla Coles once again brings us into her inimitable inner world. This time, along with her odes to the pleasures of coffee and cake and writing, she delves into the darker emotions of betrayal, endings, and coming through the fire with her sense of humour intact and her gift with words honed to a new level of insight.
"Whether the subject matter is painful, wonderful, chaotically confusing, or simply the inappropriating of her own kaleidoscopic inner culture, Carla's perfectly parsed insights are never anything less than a delight. And sometimes there's a sly lesson about how to be human in an inhuman world." Bruce Barber, author of Jetsam: New and Collected Fictions
"Artistic polymath Carla Coles once speculated that her third volume of poetry, 2018's PORE, might be the last of her 'oddly specific collection of poems for a tiny niche audience.' Luckily for that 'niche audience' (no longer so tiny), it was not to be her last hurrah. The book you're holding, INTO THE RHUBARB, brings us an almost overwhelming collection of new poems which continue Carla's mission (one of her missions, anyway) of sharing with us her unique, sometimes eccentric, always fascinating, observations and conclusions about the universe around her and within her. Whether the subject matter is painful, wonderful, chaotically confusing, or simply the inappropriating of her own kaleidoscopic inner culture, Carla's perfectly parsed insights are never anything less than a delight. And sometimes there's a sly lesson about how to be human in an inhuman world."
Bruce Barber, author of Jetsam: New and Collected Fictions